China named vehicle operating systems a gap technology in a new five-year plan

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published a five-year development plan for intelligent connected new energy vehicles on September 10, issued jointly with eight other departments and dated September 9. The document, numbered 工信部联规函〔2026〕305号, covers 2026 to 2030.

The plan lists operating systems, industrial software, automotive chips and components as 短板技术 — shortfall technologies, the term the document uses for capabilities China does not yet hold. It sets out development of a vehicle operating system kernel, middleware and functional software as a named task, and calls for interface specifications between key component systems and basic software and hardware.

Two regulatory commitments sit alongside the technology list. The plan says China will tighten admission requirements for combined driver assistance and automated driving systems, and complete the filing regime governing software and hardware upgrades. It also commits to a three-tier safety monitoring platform spanning national, local and enterprise levels, with unified exchange of security-incident data, and places responsibility for network and data security on vehicle manufacturers.

Separate columns commit to standards systems for automotive chips, automotive software, data governance and automotive artificial intelligence, and to revising functional safety, safety of the intended functionality, cybersecurity and data security standards.

For 2030 the plan targets new energy vehicles at 70 percent of domestic passenger-car sales and 40 percent of commercial-vehicle sales, large-scale application of vehicles with automated driving functions, and highly automated driving on expressways, urban expressways and some city roads. It states an aim for the safety of vehicles carrying automated driving systems to substantially exceed that of human drivers.

The nine issuing bodies include the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Cyberspace Administration of China.